'I'll nail you to the wall,' Verrier tells Tullett broker

The managing director of BGC Partners accused of orchestrating unlawful
poaching raids on Tullett Prebon has admitted telling a broker he would "nail
him to the ------- wall" for refusing to defect from the rival
inter-dealer.

Tony Verrier, who allegedly persuaded 10 staff to follow him to BGC after defecting from Tullett in January, told the High Court he was sorry for the "aggressive language" he used when one broker, Mark Comer, asked if there was a "gentlemanly way" to get out of the agreement to leave. But he denied accusations that he destroyed BlackBerrys allegedly used to orchestrate the exodus by "lobbing them into the Thames," claiming he has "a reputation for losing BlackBerrys".

Mr Verrier said he switched his Tullett BlackBerry for a BGC device before leaving the firm because he suspected Terry Smith, the chief executive, was using private detectives to track his movements.

"Tullett have certain ways of keeping people under surveillance," he told the court. "They use a firm called Penumbra and in particular a guy called Charles Webb, also known as "the Beard". I knew they would be watching me like a hawk and I wanted to keep my personal stuff away from Tullett."

The accusations emerged in the ongoing High Court battle between the rival firms over alleged unlawful poaching and breach of contracts, with both sides bringing claims against each other.

Tullett is suing BGC over an alleged campaign to damage it by luring away "crown jewel" staff members.

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Mr Verrier, nicknamed "the pied piper", admits offering a number of Tullett brokers incentives including five-year contracts and golden hellos of up to £750,000 in a series of raids code-named projects Phoenix, Wire and Toscany.

He denied asking the brokers to defect while still under contract to Tullett but said he hoped future misconduct by bosses would mean they could resign on grounds of constructive dismissal.

"Once you have notified your employer that you will be joining a competitor in the future, there is a chance that something will break," he said.

BGC is countersuing, claiming Tullett persuaded some of the brokers who planned to defect to remain in their jobs, in breach of their new contracts.